However, researchers have found that fast summer ice flow caused by significant melting is cancelled out by slower motion the following winter.

Scientists found that this is because large drainage channels, formed beneath the ice by the meltwater, helped to lower the water pressure, ultimately reducing the sliding speed.

Impact on seas

The discovery suggests that movement in the parts of the ice sheet that terminate on land are insensitive to surface melt rates.

It improves scientists’ understanding of how the ice sheet behaves and curbs error in estimating its contribution to sea level rise in a warming world.

Scientists led by the University of Edinburgh gathered detailed GPS ice flow data and ice surface melt rates along a 115 km transect in west Greenland.

They compared ice motion from an average melt year, 2009, with the exceptionally warm year of 2012.

The study, carried out in collaboration with the Universities of Sheffield, Aberdeen, Tasmania and Newcastle, was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and supported by the Natural Environment Research Council.

Although the record summer melt did not intensify ice motion, warmer summers will still lead to more rapid melting of the ice sheet. Furthermore, it is important that we continue to investigate how glaciers that end in the ocean are responding to climate change.”